Final Wrap-up on Thoughts about the Holy Spirit's Role in Missions

So, what about the Holy Spirit's role in missions? Is there anything we can glean from the ways different denominations talk about His role or the way that theologians emphasize His work? Both the ecclesiastical traditions as well as the broad spectrum of theological perspectives have identifiable commonalities that both inform and influence modern missions efforts. If elements of Lukan pneumatology still have such broad sweeping continuity with mainstream ecclesiastical traditions as well as modern theological perspectives, then an analysis of that continuity is valid. Some may question the foundation for such an inquiry, but the very fact that these pneumatological elements appear so frequently in any discussion of Missio Dei can lead to a challenging conclusion. The church’s understanding of the Holy Spirit’s direct and indirect actions in the mission of God is perhaps what still binds us together. When so many theological disparities exist, the church is still unified on the basis of the Spirit’s commission, facilitation, direction and inspiration. The church as a whole may differ on details, but these actions still produce tangible and measureable results in mission.

The specific behaviors of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts can in fact be analyzed. These actions within Lukan pneumatology fall under the category of mission of God in restoring His Kingdom by direct intervention. South African theologian David Bosch "remains profoundly skeptical of any theology which claims to discern the hand of God, fully understanding and explaining the 'signs of the times'" (see Kevin Livingston in "David Bosch: An Interpretations of Some Main Themes in His Missiological Thought" Missionalia vol. 18 no. 1, April 1990: 9). Livingston explains, “To interpret the providential acts of God in history remains, for Bosch, an ambivalent enterprise, fraught with danger" (p. 9).

According to Luke’s second volume, early Christians understood the Holy Spirit’s actions as having direct impact in church planting. To the early church, these actions of the Spirit were Missio Dei. Remarkably, there is continuity between the active aspect of Lukan pneumatology and modern Christian thought both in terms of ecclesiastical traditions and theological perspectives. Perhaps this is the church’s common ground. Perhaps the very One who indwells us, fills us, and empowers us is the very One who unites us, not only across denominations but also across the centuries.  

Theological Stances on Pneumatology & Missio Dei

Ecclesiastical traditions are not the only classifications for a systematic survey of pneumatology. Another set of categories is found in the way various theologians of these traditions have handled the pneumatological question. John Zizoulas, Karl Rahner, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jurgen Moltmann, Michael Welker and Clark Pinnock each represent unique positions on the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church especially as it relates to missions. Sometimes these theologians represent the traditions from which they come, but at other times they represent an individualized perspective. Although individual theological elements might differ, there is an amazing commonality in acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s active role in Missio Dei. Next week, I'll try to deal with how all this really has an impact on the way we do missions today.

Communion Pneumatology – John Zizioulas

John Zizioulas was a student of the Eastern Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky. He clearly represents the Orthodox tradition, but he does so in a critical way that places a huge emphasis on the communion aspect of the Holy Spirit’s work. He often speaks of the Holy Spirit’s role as that of facilitating koinonia that connects believers with God and with each other, but he would reject the term facilitator in that the Holy Spirit “is not one who aids us in bridging the distance between Christ and ourselves.”[1] Instead, the very aspect of the Holy Spirit’s presence is what defines Christ and the church.

            Zizioulas talks at times about the giving aspect of the Holy Spirit’s work, but his greater emphasis is not on active verbs like give or direct but on conceptual nominalizations like communion and being. He does admit that the Holy Spirit fills the church, only not in a way that brings life to the church. Because in his mind the church is already alive, the Holy Spirit’s role is to constitute the church from an ontological perspective. In this way, his pneumatology and his Christology are almost one and the same.

Transcendental Pneumatology – Karl Rahner

Karl Rahner is a Roman Catholic and what some have labeled a “transcendental Thomist” or a “proponent of transcendental theology.”[2] As such a proponent, he adheres to a belief that the Holy Spirit is working in ways that go beyond human experience. However, he employs experiential even existential terminology to describe his pneumatology.

The Spirit guides church leaders with a wisdom capable of overcoming their occasional foolishness in matters ecclesiastical and a strength that is their fortitude in weakness. Because of this aspect of the Spirit’s presence, Rahner sees ecclesiastical office and ministry as essentially charismatic and not merely institutional.[3]

He speaks of the charismata as gifts by the Spirit, so there is a giving role. He speaks of the saving action of the Holy Spirit, but it is more of a realization that salvation already exists within everyone and needs activation by supernatural revelation. The Holy Spirit prompts and guides in Rahner’s theology as well.

Universal Pneumatology – Wolfhart Pannenberg

Wolfhart Pannenberg is an Evangelical Lutheran theologian who has been strongly influenced by both Karl Barth and Frederich Hegel. Accordingly, his theology is often times an attempt to reconcile scientific naturalism with biblical philosophy. Furthermore, Pannenberg’s pneumatological views reflect an attempt to respond to modern biology by describing God’s work as natural and universal.

            Pannenberg sees a difference between the Holy Spirit as the third Person of the trinity and God’s spirit which flows throughout all of creation. This position has led him to identify God’s spirit as a force field or energy field that worked throughout the evolution process to raise mankind from a lower existence to what he is today. Even though this divine pulse beats through all creation, Pannenberg still places the Holy Spirit in another category.

            Pannenberg describes the Holy Spirit’s ecclesiological work as that of mediation, glorification, institution, unification and edification. Although he is not a modalist, Pannenberg believes the Holy Spirit actively mediates with the Father in Jesus Christ. He glorifies the Son in the expression of church life. Pannenberg believes the Holy Spirit’s power is what instituted the church at Pentecost.[4] But he also uses verb phrases like “binds believers together” and “lift them up” to describe the Holy Spirit’s work in the church.[5]

Holistic Pneumatology – Jurgen Moltmann

Jurgen Moltmann is a German Protestant theologian heavily influenced by Barth’s dialectical theology, by Bonheiffer’s social ethics and by Pentecostalism. Carrying overtones of eschatology and liberation, his pneumatology promotes a friendship with God the Spirit in a way that few theologians have. Somewhat reminiscent of Pannenberg’s life force concept, Moltmann also believes in the Holy Spirit’s work in life. But his pneumatology requires a more holistic approach in its applications. 

Moltmann sees the entirety of the Christian experience as “fellowship of the Spirit, for all human communities are embedded in the ecosystems of the natural communities.”[6] Basically, “wherever there is a passion for life, there the Spirit of God is operating.”[7] This approach allows for the Spirit’s active work in the physical, sexual, ecological and political realms toward a teleological end.[8] Moltmann makes perhaps his strongest statement in saying that “the church is the eschatological creation of the Spirit.”[9] Even the Spirit’s Johannine parakletos role is one of liberation with a view toward the end. As Moltmann discusses the gifts of the Spirit, though he makes a clear distinction between supernatural and natural ones, the purpose of the gift is to serve the world. 

Realistic Pneumatology – Michael Welker

Michael Welker is also a German Protestant theologian and student of Moltmann. Both a realist and a pluralist, Welker is a champion of concrete terms to describe the Holy Spirit’s work. However, his concrete words are often skewed with mystical imagery. On the one hand, Welker speaks of the Holy Spirit as “the pluriform unity of perspectives on Jesus Christ, of relations to Christ, and of the spoken and lived testimonies to Christ.”[10] On the other, he speaks of the Spirit as “a force field that constitutes public force fields” and says that “people can enter these fields or be drawn into them as bearers and as borne.”[11]

            Welker’s concrete realistic descriptions come the closest of the aforementioned theologians to providing evidence for the Holy Spirit’s active role in Missio Dei. He says the church is “built up by the Holy Spirit” and is “defined by the power of the Spirit.”[12] As a “public person”, the Holy Spirit “strengthens, comforts, and illumines” people.[13] He readily uses active verbs to describe the interactions between man and God’s Spirit. But even so, his expressions lead him to present those interactions as with the “multicontextual and pholyphonic presence of the Spirit.”[14]

Systematic Pneumatology – Clark Pinnock

Clark Pinnock is a Free Church theologian with roots in the liberal Baptist tradition. His particular pneumatological slant is to see the Holy Spirit’s active work in an unlimited capacity and yet one that can be systematically approached. He starts chapter two of his Flame of Love with a declaration that “there is a cosmic range to the operations of the Spirit, the Lord and giver of life.”[15] While Karkkainen argues that “the Bible presents no systematized outline of the work of the Spirit, anymore than it does of any other systematic topic,”[16] Pinnock would disagree. Instead, Pinnock approaches his systematic theology by pulling from Eastern Orthodox pneumatology and thus not allowing categories to dictate experiential elements.

            Pinnock employs verbs like “guiding, luring, wooing, influencing, [and] drawing” to describe the Holy Spirit’s work.[17] He speaks of the Spirit as life-giving and having roles that fill and edify the church with his gifts. Pinnock argues though that these actions are representative of the larger activity the Spirit completes throughout life experiences.

---

[1] John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: St.  Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 110, italics in the original.

[2] Karen Kilby, Karl Rahner: Theology and Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2004), 32.

[3] Karl Rahner and Geffrey B. Kelly, Karl Rahner: Theologican of the Graced Search for Meaning (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 218.

[4] Veli-Matti Karkkainen, Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 124. 

[5] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) , 3:134

[6] Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 225.

[7] Karkkainen, Pneumatology, 126. 

[8] See Karkkainen, Pneumatology, 128. 

[9] Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1993), 33.

[10] Michael Welker, God the Spirit, trans. John F. Hoffmeyer (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 314.

[11] Welker, God the Spirit, 242. 

[12] Welker, God the Spirit, 308-309.

[13] Welker, God the Spirit, 334. 

[14] Michael Welker, ed., The Work of the Spirit: Pneumatology and Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 229.

[15] Subtitled A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 49.

[16] Karkkainen, Pneumatology, 23.

[17] Pinnock, Flame of Love, 216, as cited in Karkkainen, Pneumatology, 142.  

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. 

How the Holy Spirit Initiates & Employs Missions

Have you ever thought about "Cause & Effect" in relation to the Holy Spirit's work in missions?

Though Bultmann “rightly sets in contrast bondage to the law as entailing bondage to the cause-effect processes of the past with the liberty of the Spirit,”[1] there are yet elements of a spiritual cause-effect system at play in the Book of Acts. Even though some of the Holy Spirit’s activities are not identified with active verbs, there are results with direct links to the Holy Spirit’s actions. These indirect by-products are nonetheless attributed to the Holy Spirit as initiator.     

The early church understood that the Holy Spirit caused some things to happen albeit in an indirect way. Breaking from tradition and Scripture, some later argued that this indirect influence was the only method the Spirit employed. Pelagius, for example, fallaciously “denied any direct operation of the Holy Spirit on human wills.”[2] Instead, he maintained that the Holy Spirit only indirectly influences the human conscience. This argument was later defeated, but even the debate stirred a deeper understanding of the Spirit’s causal relationship in the church’s mission.

Luke began his narrative as a documentary of the charismata, those supernatural gifts that the Spirit caused to happen to bond and expand the church. Acts 1:8 describes the dynamic power to witness as a direct result of the Holy Spirit’s coming. In Acts 2:4 the Holy Spirit enabled believers to speak in other languages for evangelism. Acts 2:17–18 describes the Holy Spirit’s filling that led to prophecies, visions and dreams, and the church received these as fulfillment of things foretold in the Old Testament. In Acts 4:31 the church understood the Holy Spirit’s filling of Peter as the direct cause of his boldness in speech. Throughout the Book of Acts, Luke describes these unifying acts as results of the Holy Spirit’s direct influence. In Lukan pneumatology “the unity of the church is not based on organization but on the power of the Holy Spirit and the life that the Spirit inspires.”[3]

            At some point after Paul’s first missions trip, he penned a list of attributes that became identified with the Christian life filled with and directed by the Holy Spirit. Known as fruits, these attributes were footprints that let a believer recognize the Spirit’s presence. Interestingly enough, it was about that same time period in the Acts narrative that Luke employed an attributive method for the Holy Spirit’s actions.[4]  

However, even more than slight references to the Holy Spirit’s actions by attribution, Luke utilized the instrumental case to identify actions by the Spirit. In Acts 4:25 Luke designated the words of David as having been spoken by the Holy Spirit. Acts 6:10 also names the Spirit by whom Stephen spoke the truth. Moreover, in Acts 9:31 Luke marks the Holy Spirit’s encouragement as being the instrumental element that preceded numerical church growth and an attitude of worship. Luke knew “that it is only the power of God, the ‘proof’ of God’s Spirit working in people, that convinces unbelievers of the truth of the news of Jesus and that leads them to faith in Jesus the Messiah and Savior.”[5] These actions are attributed to the Holy Spirit’s work in an indirect way; nevertheless, Luke identifies them as playing a role in the early church’s understanding of the mission of God.

It really makes me wonder how much missions activity we do today with the thought of "look what we're doing for God" rather than "see what the Holy Spirit is doing through us". What do you think?

---

[1] Anthony C. Thiselton, The Hermeneutics of Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 425.

[2] Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demerest, Integrative Theology: Historical, Biblical, Systematic, Apologetic, Practical: 3 volumes in 1, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 55.

[3] Eckhard J. Schnabel, Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies and Methods, (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2008), 12.

[4] See Acts 13:52. Before the end of Paul’s first missionary journey, Luke describes how the disciple’s filling with the Holy Spirit also brought about a filling with joy, one of the fruits listed in Galatians 5:22–23.

[5] Eckhard J. Schnabel, Paul the Missionary, 400.