How do respond to an advertisement such as the above? The scene depicts the Last Supper, with the light shining on the one disciple who has no halo (Judas Iscariot). The punchline is: ‘the right lighting changes everything’. Do we respond with nonchalance? After all, all publicity is good publicity; at least the message brings the Christian story into the market place. Are we offended? How can the Last Supper be mocked publicly? Or do we respond with regret? The problem is that very few young people have now heard the Christian story and therefore many may not understand what is happening at all...
‘In some sense,’ it has been argued, ‘the current times are not unlike the pagan world in which the apostles first proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is true, that the West is more an “angry divorcee,” and the ancient Gentile world which was more like a virgin awaiting her groom. But there are still some parallels, and our presumption that most people heard the basics of Scripture, and the gospel is generally a poor presumption today. Most have not heard Christ, or the Scriptures authentically proclaimed. And to the degree that they have, it has been proclaimed to them with hostility and cynicism by a world and a culture that scoffs at the claims of Christ, his Church, the Christian tradition.’
If this argument is correct, then a great deal depends on who we think brought about the growth of the early Church and the way in which it was done. Here there is a basic contradiction between the accounts of the eastern Orthodox Church and the western Catholic Church, which led to the historic split in the year 1054.
Let us take the Orthodox account first. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles reveals to us that the Holy Spirit was at the heart of the growth of the Church from the outset. He encouraged the early churches and found leaders for the new congregations. The Church existed and grew only through the Spirit working in the hearts of believers. Our task is not just, as Paul tells us, not to put out the Spirit’s fire, not to quench or stifle it (1 Thessalonians 5:19). It is about igniting it to illuminate all our actions and decisions as a Church community. The true mark of the Church is that it prays and worships in the Spirit (Philippians 3:3). At its best, worship is thus a Spirit-led movement, giving praise to God, proclaiming what He has done and is doing, and what our human response should be (T. Page, ‘Holy Spirit’, in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, 412). We are not left as ‘orphans’ by a Christ who we can no longer see (cf. John 14:18) if all our ministry in the church and beyond its walls is done in the Holy Spirit. The people of God walk in the comfort of the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:31). They rejoice in the Holy Spirit (Luke 10:21), resolve and decide things in the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:28), have their conscience bear witness in the Holy Spirit (Romans 9:2), have access to God in the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:18), pray in the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26, Jude 1:20), and love in the Holy Spirit (Colossians 1:8).
For all these reasons, the Orthodox Church regards the Holy Spirit as the ‘creator’ of the Church and rejects the formulation in the Creed known as the filioque, namely that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Father and Son and not directly from the Father. In the Western Church after the year 589, the Son submits to the Father, while the Holy Spirit submits to both the Son and the Father. The Eastern (later, Orthodox) Church, however, never accepted this further definition and contended then and still contends today that the Spirit proceeds only from the Father: this issue ‘remains the primary theological difference between the Eastern and Western churches’ (Stanley M. Burgess, ‘Holy Spirit’, in The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, ed. G. T. Kurian, ii.1146; the term filioque means in Latin ‘and the son’). In Eastern Christendom, Basil the Great, known as a ‘Doctor of the Holy Spirit’, went further than anyone in the west in a treatise On the Holy Spirit, proclaiming that the Spirit is the creator of the Church (Burgess, ‘Holy Spirit’, 1147).
In the western church, the emphasis was rather on the Church being led by Jesus himself through his appointed disciples and then through the apostolic succession. Instead of being lost and reduced to silence, the disciples are ‘sent’ and the Spirit is to be sent to them so that they may have the ‘truth’ continually revealed to them and its significance instilled in them. The Holy Spirit will therefore be their ‘teacher’ and ‘revealer’, perhaps even ‘exhorter’, the means by which they will ‘understand’ the gospel and the presence and guidance of God the Father and the Son, thus creating the ‘Spirit of mission’ (M. M. B. Turner, ‘Holy Spirit’, in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 350). The initial proclamation sought to get right to the point. In effect, this kerygmatic approach was seen more as a proclamation addressed directly to the hearer, and is a call to conversion, rather than as an extended appeal to the reason or to motives of credibility. Jesus is the chosen Messiah of God, the one who was promised. And though he was crucified, He rose gloriously from the dead, appearing to his disciples, and having been exulted at the right hand of the Father through his ascension, now summons all to him, through the ministry of the Church. This proclamation (kerygma) requires a response from us, that we should repent of our sins accept baptism and live in the new life which Christ is offering. This alone will prepare us for the coming judgment that is to come upon all humanity.
Is it possible to reconcile the different accounts of the early Church? Perhaps we can do so through the writings of St Paul, for whom the Spirit is the only means to know God and to accept the gospel. There is a ‘Jesus character’ to Paul’s view of the Holy Spirit, referred to as ‘the Spirit of Christ’ (Romans 8:9) or ‘the Spirit of God’s son’ (Galatians 4:6). The Spirit promotes the confession of Jesus as Lord in the church: ‘no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit’ (1 Corinthians 12:3). The reverse is also true: ‘if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His’ (Romans 8:9). For Paul, the Holy Spirit is the guarantor and hope of the coming kingdom of Christ: when you trusted in the Lord Jesus, he tells us in Ephesians, you were ‘sealed with the Spirit of promise’ (Ephesians 1:13). The promise includes freedom for the believer (‘The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’: 2 Corinthians 3:17).
Moreover, there is
an additional promise of no condemnation: ‘…there is no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according
to the Spirit’ (Romans 8:1). Since we are God’s temple, if God’s Spirit lives in us (1 Corinthians 3:16), it
is the Holy Spirit which renews and enriches our worship. The Spirit empowers
all believers with various gifts according to need and inspires the faithful to
use their gifts correctly: this is an important link to both the spirituality
and good governance of the Church. Paul tells us in Romans 8:14 that
‘all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God’ (or, in another
translation, his sons and daughters). This means that we are led by the Holy
Spirit externally, to understand the Word of God in scripture: ‘This is why the
Holy Spirit says, “Today you must listen to his voice…”’ We are led internally
by the Holy Spirit ‘indwelling’ or strengthening us: ‘not a brute strength but
a glorious inner strength’, a ‘mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit’
(Ephesians 3:16. By his power working in us, God through the Holy Spirit ‘is
able to do far beyond anything we can ask or imagine’ (Ephesians 3:20). If we believe that God is telling us to do
something, then we need to do it. We need to respond to the Holy Spirit for him
to lead us. ‘If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit’
(Galatians 5:25) – let us follow the Holy Spirit’s lead in every part of our
lives. We need to work out its implications in every detail of our lives.
‘Since it is through the Spirit that we have Life, let it also be through the
Spirit that we order our lives day by day’ (Galatians 5:25, Complete Jewish
Bible).
If we do indeed
heed the call of the Holy Spirit to order our lives in a different way, there
are radical consequences for our lives as individuals, and our collective life together
as a Church. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:15: ‘He died for everyone so that
those who receive his new life will no
longer live to please themselves. Instead, they will live to please Christ,
who died and was raised for them’ (New Living Translation, Italics mine). We
receive true refreshment in our surrender to Christ. Matthew 11:28 is often misunderstood when translated as ‘I will
give you rest’: ‘Come to me all you that labour and are burdened, and I will
give you rest.’ God’s service is not about taking a vacation, however. It is
about true rest, that is, receiving refreshment from fulfilling God’s will:
‘Come to me all you that labour and are burdened, and I shall refresh you (or
fulfil you).’ ‘…come to me and I shall fulfil you’, the Wycliffe Bible
translates the phrase and by so doing conveys its true meaning.
