I don't know that I'm oneness, trinitarian or modalist or bits and pieces of all. I do believe that "God is Spirit" always was always will be. But 'in the beginning was THE WORD...not a man named Jesus. In the beginning was Father/spirit Word/spirit Holy Spirit/spirit...GOD. And The Word gave up equality with God to become flesh according to scripture.
The Father is definitely spirit, even when he was walking alongside Adam in the garden of Eden; but this should not preclude that he did not appear in human form. As for the Word (the Son), the Scriptures tell us that he has
always been with his Father. Depending on which version of the Nicene Creed you adhere to, where the original says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father or the revised version (the Filioque) which says that the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, then the Holy Spirit has
always been in existence as well.
Even though my theology is intensely Trinitarian where I walk amongst those who are also Trinitarian, I know full well that most of my card-carrying Trinitarian friends and peers are often really only Binitarian where our Evangelical brothers and sisters may very well often fall into the camp of Christomonism.
Define "
Divine Spirits". Does the Holy Spirit becomes '
a spirit' when placed there by the Holy Spirit into a body of sinful flesh? And then upon
regeneration it becomes '
a holy spirit'? 'A spirit' which 'the Spirit can descend UPON as scripture
always says concerning Jesus who was born with 'a holy spirit' to start with and therefore needed not, a
'born again' experience. But he still needed a baptism from above of The Spirit? I don't know for sure, but it all works for me....but I still try to remain open....I think...I hope.
1JO 4:13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of/tou his Spirit.
And the word for "OF" is tou and means 'out of'. So what does that really mean? I don't know. But it's obvious to me that with all the opposing 'scholarly' opinions out there, I'm comfortable believing that the mystery is still pretty safe with God.
Maybe my following question could be a result of my somewhat warped Aussie humour, but could you do me a favour, the next time that you find yourself in a new church/homegroup, could you maybe wear a discrete body camera where you can record the looks on people faces while they are struggling to work out how to reply to your “the Holy Spirit becomes a ‘spirit’” – it would be priceless as very few Trinitarians have spent the time thinking through their beliefs.
On a more thoughtful note, theologically speaking, there would be a virtual unanimous agreement that at the moment of our conversion/initiation, we each receive the actual presence of the Holy Spirit within us, where the
ἐκ τοῦ (of the) refers to how we each share in the Holy Spirit which makes us all a part of the one Body. It is only through this communal reception that we become brothers and sisters in Christ.
As I am a Dichotomist or more properly, a
functional Dichotomist, I would say that beside our human body and soul, as the new Christian is made complete by the actual reception of the Holy Spirit, that the Believer is now a
trichotomist being.
For the Trichotomist, they of course believe that that the Holy Spirit resides in and empowers the
dormant human spirit.
The next graphic shows how
ἐκ has been used to modify other Greek words. This graphic isn't as clear as I would like it to be. The number 1666 is the GK number (a modern version of the old Strong's number) for the NIV, where it shows about 18o words that
ἐκ modifies.
ἐκ is not as simple as you might think; it can be used to not only mean 'out' but as the graphic belows shows, it can mean a wide range of other things as well.
Not at all. I'm not interested in the opinions of the best theological MINDS. I'm interested in the guy who got his revelation from the Spirit of truth and not just differing 'theological minds'. And I simply believe that the best answer is going to have to come from some one who is Spirit baptized for that to happen. But Spirit baptized or speaking in tongues certainly is no guarantee 'in and of itself'. We've both seen too many Spirit baptized still be deceived.
When it comes to receiving insights into God’s Word, should someone who does the hard slog where they prayerfully spend time in the Word of God receive less than someone who essentially sits effortlessly back in their chair and waits for something to pop into their mind – we usually call the latter
hard-core cessationists.
If you were to take a course in Greek, would you prefer a charismatic who has had maybe a couple of months training to a non-charismatic (or even an outright liberal) who has spent his life delving into the Greek language and with the intricacies of the language of the Greek New Testament; for me, I would go for the liberal church goer who has demonstrated a high degree of competency to a novice charismatic who can do little more than read and write Greek.
Now, when it comes to Soteriology, Christology and Pneumatology, if I knew that the lecturer was not Born Again then I would not even bother signing up for the class.
With those nine text books that I referred to, the only one who is not a Pentecostal is Anthony Thiselton; so there you have it, it is possible to be both
Spirit filled and intelligent! Mind you, I have no doubt that the vast majority of Pentecostals would be embarrassed if they found themselves sitting in front of Thiselton where he randomly asked the audience questions about the Holy Spirit.
- Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (2006) Frank D. Macchia
- Justified in the Spirit: Creation, Redemption, and the Triune God (2010) Frank D. Macchia
- Pneumatology (2002) Veli-Matti Karkkainen
- Beyond Pentecostalism (2010) Wolfgang Vondey
- God’s Empowering Presence (1996) Gordon D. Fee
- The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology (2005) Amos Yong
- Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God (1994) Gordon D. Fee
- Holy Spirit and Salvation (2010) Veli-Matti Karkkainen
- The Holy Spirit in Biblical Teaching (2013) Anthony C. Thiselton
You may have already noticed where all of the books were written after 1995. We probably both experienced the charismatic renewal as bright-eyed teenagers, where in those days Pentecostal or even charismatic scholars did not exist. I would say that for most of us (including me) that a Spirit led Theologian was something of an oxymoron where we
knew that theologians were grown in cemeteries seminaries. But since the late 80’s things have now changed where
non-classic Pentecostal and charismatic scholarship has finally taken the high ground.
N.T. Wright who is a specialist on Paul has a YouTube
video titled
How Paul invented Christian Theology, where the title did admittedly surprise me as we all realise that the Old Testament had been around a long time before Paul even existed. Even though his lecture goes for over an hour, within the first ten minutes he was able to explain that Paul’s approach to teaching/theology is vastly different to that of his Jewish peers. At about the six minute mark, Wright mentions that the Jewish rabbis “did not do theology” where their commentaries simply spoke of what God had already revealed to Israel through the Law; he also said “The Jews did not ask how they could understand God more”.