A Conscious Dependence on the Holy Spirit (Part 1)

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The Paraclete, the Spirit of the Lord, the Holy Ghost. There are a wide arrange of terms used to refer to the third person of the trinity, who we affectionately call the Holy Spirit. The fifth Covenant Affirmation, A conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit, seeks among other things to establish the essence that draws together the body of Christ, namely the Holy Spirit. If you have been paying attention to how these Affirmations are ordered and how they flow in and out of each other you will see that this Affirmation seeks to provide an explanation for how the church as a fellowship of believers is united, and how this reality of freedom in Christ is made possible. We are interested then, in how this Affirmation can be made clearer, how this Affirmation affects us as participating Covenanters, and what the implications of this Affirmation are for us as Canadian Covenanters.

When we first sought writers for this first endeavour of this new round table project, it was not terribly difficult to find people who were interested in reflecting on these Affirmations for the sake of the church and theological reflection. That was the case for all except for this fifth Affirmation. It is always an uncomfortable task for any to attempt an explanation of who the Spirit is and what the Spirit does, primarily because there are mysterious aspects of our faith which when explained never truly reflect the holistic realities of those mysteries, but also because Scripture itself is vague when it comes to identifying this Spirit who we call Holy.

I am sure that many are aware that the word which is often translated into English as Spirit is pneuma(noo-ma) in the Greek, or ruah(roo-ah) in the Hebrew. The difficulty in handling this word is that it can also be taken to mean wind or breath(when we say pneuma, think about a pneumatic drill that is powered by compressed air). There are a number of textual concerns that arise when scholars attempt to understand this word as either Spirit or wind in their contexts. And context is very important when determining whether a word should be translated one way or another. This becomes especially important in the Old Testament where in Genesis 1:2 for instance, the ruah of God hovered over the waters. So, determining when and where “The Spirit of God” is present throughout Scripture, and identifying what this Spirit of God is doing can be challenging to say the least. For example, the NIV translates this verse: “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Whereas the NRSV puts it like this: “while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” The majority of Scriptural references that the Covenant Affirmations utilize in summarizing what we believe the Spirit to be doing in our lives as Christians come from the New Testament.

Among other things, we believe that the Spirit of God who descends upon Jesus at His baptism(Mark 1:10) is the same Spirit who opens our eyes to the wonders and truth of God(John 3), by whom we can participate in this family of faith(1 Cor 15:58), and through whom we are united together as the body of Christ(1 Cor 12:13), and is the same Spirit promised to be with us(John 14:16). But what does it mean to consciously depend on this Spirit? It is perhaps difficult for us as North American Christians to imagine the need to depend upon anything other than our own ability to bring about whatever we put our minds to and the number that the bank tells us represents our financial stature. Why and how could we depend on anything other than our own determination and money? I would make an argument that Exodus 33 can be utilized to understand how important it is for us as Christians to depend on God’s Spirit and what that dependency looks like.

In Exodus, we have the remarkable story of how God responded to the cries of His people by redeeming His people in bringing them out of Egypt. In chapter 19 the Israelites arrive at mount Sinai and Moses goes up to meet God on the mountain top. There Moses receives the Ten commandments, and instruction regarding the conduct that the Israelites are to live by. This goes on until chapter 32, when the Israelites begin to feel uneasy regarding the length of time Moses has been absent for. They create for themselves a golden calf and begin to worship it, similar to the way that we have established the financial institutions we call banks. God is responds to the decision of the Israelites to make for themselves an idol by removing them from His presence. Had He not just brought them out of Egypt? Had they forgotten the lengths He had gone to in order to ensure their safety and deliverance? In chapter 33 the Lord commands Moses to take the people and leave the mountain of His presence. He says,

“go to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you… but I will not go up among you” 4 When the people heard these harsh words, they mourned. 15 And Moses said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us?

After sometime, Moses manages to convince the Lord to continue to be present with Israel, to go wih them as they leave for the promised land.

The point is this. Moses and the people of Israel knew that unless the Lord continued with them into the land which was promised to Abraham, there was no hope. the Lord might as well have killed them all at the foot of Sinai, for that would be more merciful. The people had come to depend on the presence of God already. Not only when God led them out of Egypt through plagues, not only across the sea, but even for basic things like food and water. Without God present in the lives of the Israelites, there was no hope for them to survive in the wilderness, let alone any hope to arrive in the promised land.

In the next post, I will discuss the implications of this dependence upon the Spirit in our lives as Covenanters and as Canadians.

The Church as a Fellowship of Believers

Everett Wilson has been a minister of the Evangelical Covenant Church since graduation from North Park Theological Seminary in 1962. After forty-six years as a pastor of five Covenant churches(Saskatoon being one of those churches), he and Donna retired to their home state of Nebraska. In addition to serving in a variety of Covenant Churches, he also wrote a little brochure entitled ‘Covenant Distinctives’ which was an attempt to identify how the Covenant is perhaps different from some of the other evangelical groups.( Evangelical but not exclusive... Biblical but not doctrinaire... Traditional but not rigid... Congregational but not independent)

Around 200 years before Donald Frisk taught systematic theology at North Park Theological Seminary (1945-1975) John Wesley did a pretty good job of describing him. 

      A man of a truly catholic spirit has not now his religion to seek. He is fixed as the sun in his judgment concerning the main branches of Christian doctrine. It is true, he is always ready to hear and weigh whatsoever can be offered against his principles; but as this does not show any wavering in his own mind, so neither does it occasion any. He does not halt between two opinions, nor vainly endeavor to blend them into one. (Sermon 39, Collected Sermons)
      Frisk thought for himself and taught his students, me among them, to think for ourselves; but we had to be alert for his persistent—but always courteous—question: “What do you mean by that?” If he asked it in class he would not let us off the hook by answering it for us. If we did not know what we meant, we should not have said it. He asked the question not to intimidate or ridicule, which was not in him to do, but to teach.
      He taught me pretty well, so now I am asking Frisk’s question as I ponder the fourth Affirmation: “we affirm the church as a fellowship of believers.” What do we mean by that?
      “Church,” “Fellowship,” and “Believers” have so many connotative meanings that the affirmation may mean something of eternal consequence or something too trivial to discuss, or several options in between--some heretical. Heresy is wonderfully inventive.
      I have been asked to summarize the affirmation, but since the affirmation is itself a summary I will let my introductory comments stand in place of a summary. Then I am to address the following questions:

1. What does this affirmation mean? 

2. Why is fellowship vital for the life of a believer? 

3. How does this affirmation affect the life of Covenanters in the pews?

4. How does this affirmation affect the life of the Covenant church as a larger community.

1. To grasp the meaning of the church as a fellowship of believers we must aim very high. No secular definition of any of the three key words applies to them as they are used in this affirmation.
In this usage, Fellowship has nothing to do with coffee, Church has nothing to do with boards, committees, or majority votes, and Believers has nothing to do with opinions.
      Rather, fellowship is the same as participation; specifically, participation in the Holy Spirit. The Greek word, koinonia, is translated as either “participation,” “fellowship,” or “communion.” So in the Lord’s Supper the broken bread is a participation in the body of Christ.
      Believers, therefore, are not defined by their common opinions but by their common relationship with God through the Spirit and Word. It is not formed by the Spirit alone as ecstatic experience, or by the Word alone as rational construct; the church is an incarnate word, the body of Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The Church as anything less or other than this is no church at all. Paul’s Trinitarian benediction at the end of 2 Corinthians—the grace of the Redeemer, the love of the Father, and the Participation of the Spirit—describes the impenetrable integrity of the church at all times and in all places. It is created by the Father, redeemed by the Son, and born anew by the Holy Spirit. It is a world away from a group of disaffected believers who think they can make a church by writing up some articles of incorporation or a list of affirmations.
      But these affirmations did not spring from the invention of a denominational committee. The Committee rather discerned them from the Covenant’s commitment to the Word and its participation in the Spirit. If my memory is correct—and there are not many still in this world to dispute it—the committee was appointed to express a consensus, not a creed; a description, not a prescription; an IS, not a SHOULD. If we succumb to treating the Affirmations as a creed, as some seem to be itching to do (and maybe getting away with it here and there) the Covenant will end its history as a life movement and become a religious bureaucracy. It has happened before.
      2. Fellowship is necessary to the life of the believer. It cannot be otherwise. The church is the household of God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15), not the human achievement of like-minded people. Fellowship is a fact of the church’s existence, like breathing in and out is a fact of yours. In other words, it is a matter of life and death. Because we are fleshly, organic creatures, we require interaction; it is not an option except in exceptional cases, which are required by definition to be few.
      3. If Covenanters have the will to do the will of God, this affirmation will be a constant reminder to bring their behavior in line with it—to rejoice in their common identity with other Christians, to rely upon it and be relied upon in return. If they do not have this will, they will disrupt the peace and purity of the church. Stanley Jones used to say that the will of God is the way the universe is run. You get hurt if you don’t go along. The church is a local expression of the same principle. It goes bad, however, when members confuse a “don’t rock the boat” mindset with the will of God, and treat those who want to do the will of God as troublemakers.
      4. The church is the fellowship of those who are born from above. Any limitation on Christian fellowship that is more limiting than this runs counter to the vision of the founding fathers, even though they were limited by language barriers in our early years. Peter Matson, our first missionary, was distressed by the slowness of the Covenant in the United States to break out of the Swedish Ghetto.
      But we did. Some of it came in a rush. The church was in its 99th year before it had a non-Swede (me!) as moderator of the Annual Meeting. It was my privilege to moderate the Centennial Meeting the next year also. Then the dam broke! I was succeeded by the first woman, and she was succeeded by the first Chinese-American.

The Covenant has always had a world vision.