Varied Ecclesiastical Perspectives on the Holy Spirit's Role in Missions

When it comes to the subject of the Holy Spirit, different denominations have been formed to handle how a group views or expresses the active relationship the believer has with the Third Person of the Trinity. Accordingly, different church traditions have unique understandings about the active role of the Holy Spirit in missions. The church has experienced various traditions in its expression of ecclesiology and pneumatology. This has led to varied emphases on the role of the Holy Spirit specifically in building the church. Surveying Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Pentecostalism with broad strokes can help to reveal how the church has viewed the actions of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the ecclesiastical perspectives reveal a startling continuity in relation to the active role of the Holy Spirit in fulfilling the mission of God.  

            I found Veli-Matti Karkkainen’s work in his Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002) to be a useful tool to format ecclesiastical and theological categories. Specifically, his categories from chapters 4 and 5 of that book are adopted to form the framework for those headings here, so I'll just reference the page number. I will attempt to give an accurate reflection of each perspective's missiological framework without passing judgment.

Eastern Orthodoxy - Not "I" But "We"

The Eastern Orthodox Church acknowledges the active role of the Holy Spirit in Missio Dei, but much of the pneumatological language used within Orthodoxy relates to the Holy Spirit’s activity within the corporate body of the church as opposed to individuals. Karkkainen sees western theology as "built on Christological concepts rather than pneumatological ones" (68), so Eastern Orthodoxy claims to place a higher priority on their pneumatology. Because the Orthodox tradition is “more experience-based and concrete than Latin theology” (68), there is a ready acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s activity in the church. “The role of the Spirit according to this understanding is to make the ‘first contact’, which is followed by a revelation of the Son and, through him, the Father” (69).

Accordingly, “the mystical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church sees the ministry of the Spirit differently than does the Lutheran Church” (67) because of its Orthodox emphasis upon corporate behavior. Whereas the protestant tradition might place an emphasis on the Holy Spirit’s personhood, the Orthodox tradition sees the Holy Spirit’s role mainly in terms of his activity related to soteriology and ecclesiology for the larger global and cosmic church. An active pneumatological role in the doctrine of salvation produces an Orthodox accent on His sanctifying and anointing work (ie. Deificiation), while the Holy Spirit’s role in the doctrine of the church stresses His filling and unifying work throughout all time.

In the Orthodox understanding of soteriology, the Holy Spirit plays a large role in the sanctification of the believer than what other denominations emphasize. It is a requisite role as “many Eastern fathers’ texts – from Simeon the New Theologian, whose view is always toward a pneumatological orientation, to Maximus the Confessor and the Cappadocian fathers – highlights [sic] the necessary connection between the Spirit and salvation” (69). Other Orthodox theologians highlight the Holy Spirit's work in theosis in "that persons to be deified, though they retain their own identity (i.e., do not overstep the distinction between God and humans), are all filled with the Holy Spirit” as an expression of communing with God's energies (69).

            Orthodox ecclesiology reveals the church’s accent on the Holy Spirit’s filling at Pentecost as an advent with ongoing implications. To them the Holy Spirit expresses Christ through the church even today. Orthodox theologians see "the church as the body of Christ and the fullness of the Holy Spirit” (71). According to Vladimir Lossky in The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), Pentecost is not a “continuation” of Jesus’ life “but rather its sequel, its result” (72). Timothy Ware, or Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia, writes in The Orthodox Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990), “In the church of later days, these charismatic ministries have been less in evidence, but they have never been wholly extinguished.” (249-250). It is this ongoing filling that unifies the church amidst diverse gifts. These thoughts are reflective of Lukan presentation of the Holy Spirit as the promise to which Jesus alluded, but it is also the very aspect to which Orthodoxy claims spiritual continuity with the early church and therefore a part of the current mission of God in the world.

Roman Catholicism - How We Get

Even if the Roman Catholic church was never totally without some teaching on the Holy Spirit, Vatican II brought an active view of pneumatology to the forefront. It was that event that “emphasized repeatedly the Spirit’s sovereign freedom in dispensing the charisms” (76). Roman Catholic pneumatology was evidenced in the way its theologians saw the Spirit’s active work in salvation and revelation. Roman Catholics view the Spirit’s soteriological activity in saving, giving, advocating, and guiding in the salvation process. Yet they also see a pneumatological role in revealing and communicating truth.

            Roman Catholic soteriology cannot be divorced from pneumatology. Many catholic theologians “identify God’s Spirit as the quintessence of the experience of salvation” (77). Even today, “the charisms of the Spirit play an indispensible role in the life of the church because they create the shared faith consciousness of the Christian community” (78). Some theologians invoke the paraclete image to “speak about a true ecumenical theology as a healer, a consoler, an advocate” (78) in salvation. Even Pope John Paul II “placed the church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit” (78) as He guides the church into salvation truth. The Spirit is God with us on mission.

            The Holy Spirit’s active role in revelation comes to light in Roman Catholic doctrine “as God’s own self-communication to human beings through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit” (77). “Revelation is primarily the personal communication of the Spirit, that is, God’s own life, not the disclosure of divinely privileged information about God” (77). Therefore, it is largely within the ongoing dispersal of spiritual gifts and the action of illumination within the global framework of expanding the church that Catholicism finds its continuity with Lukan pneumatology. For the Catholic, the Spirit is still the Great Dispenser of gifts to fulfill the mission.

Lutheranism - What We Get

Historically, protestants have tended to place more missiological emphasis on the Second Person of the Trinity over the Holy Spirit. Lutheranism was a protestant reaction to the Roman Catholic church, but Luther acknowledged some active pneumatological behavior in Missio Dei. Some argue that “whereas the Eastern Church has more consciously built its theology on pneumatological foundations, the whole of western theology has emphasized Christology” (79). But Luther’s own “study of the Holy Spirit is part of his theological corpus, which includes more than twenty Pentecost Day sermons” (80). Luther seemed to compartmentalize his own pneumatological understanding of the Holy Spirit as a Person and the Holy Spirit as a gift.

            Traditionally, the Lutheran church has seen the Holy Spirit’s expressed role as God the giver, “so we distinguish the Holy Spirit as God in his divine nature and essence from the Holy Spirit as he is given to us” (81). His work as giver is observed inwardly in the church through his active role in communicating the Word and sacraments to the church and outwardly through the spiritual gifts given for the edification of the church. But for Luther there was also an element of the Holy Spirit as the Gift to the church. As a gift to the church with external activity, he moves hearts, reminds men of their sins, and fulfills the law’s requirements. Luther saw the Holy Spirit as mediating Christ’s work to the church specifically but also making that available to all who are yet outside the church.  Luke’s presentation of the Holy Spirit’s active soteriological and missiological applications is the Lutheran hallmark for continuity with the early church. 

Pentecostalism - When We Get

Pentacostals put an emphasis on the body of Christ. With their traditional acceptance of subsequent blessings or grace by the Holy Spirit as evidenced in sign gifts or speaking in tongues, Pentacostals make up approximately 20% of the Christian church today. Usually they accept a regenerative or conversion work of the Holy Spirit as the primary entry into the Christian’s life, but early Pentecostals would often separate a second work of sanctification. While often referred to as the second blessing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in tongues would be considered by some to be a third blessing. Some Pentecostals might argue that empowerment to witness would be yet another separate blessing.

            Although there is unity in the Pentecostal acceptance of subsequent blessings, there is some diversity in how the Holy Spirit actuates these blessings. For sacramental Pentecostals, the Spirit-baptism is a breaking through of the Spirit in a person who already possesses the gift from conversion. For non-sacramental Pentecostals, there is a “new imparting” of blessing or gift (97). But regardless of that distinction, the Pentecostal tradition embraces an active role of the Holy Spirit as giver, gift and guide. His role as facilitator or sender is usually bound up in the idea of that individualized work that is experienced through koinonia or fellowship with him. These new experiences might not necessarily have precedence in Scripture, but Pentecostal theological praxis usually dictates interpretation in light of Scriptural truth.