The Spirit And “Spiritual” Life
LIFE IN THE SPIRIT
Any careful reading of Paul’s letters makes it abundantly clear that the Spirit is the key element, the sine qua non, of all Christian life and experience. To put that in theological perspective, it needs to be noted that, contrary to historic Protestantism, “justification by faith” is not the central theme of Pauline theology.12 That is but one metaphor among many, and therefore much too narrow a view to capture the many-splendored richness of God’s eschatological salvation that has been effected in Christ. For Paul the theme “salvation in Christ” dominates everything, from beginning to end. And for him “salvation in Christ” is the activity of the triune God. God the Father, the subject of the saving verbs, has fore-ordained and initiated salvation for his people; God the Son, through his death on the cross, has effected it, and thereby accomplished for his people adoption, justification, redemption, sanctification, reconciliation, and propitiation, to name the primary metaphors. But it is God the Spirit who has effectively appropriated God’s salvation in Christ in the life of the believer and of the believing community. Without the latter, the former simply does not happen.
Thus Gal 4:4-6: at the historically propitious moment God sent forth his Son to redeem, so that we might receive the full rights of sonship; and because “sonship” is what he had in mind he sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, who cries out “Abba, Father” to God. Similarly Titus 3:5-7: on the basis of sheer mercy, God saved us, through the washing of renewal and regeneration that come from the Spirit, whom he lavishly poured out on us through Christ, having justified us by the grace of Christ. And so it goes everywhere. Christ’s saving act becomes an experienced reality through the gift of the Spirit of God, God’s own personal presence in our human lives. Without the Spirit of God, one simply is not a part of the people of God.
So much is this so — that is, that Christian conversion is an experienced realization of God’s own presence by his Spirit — that Paul writing to the Galatians appeals to this singular reality as the certain evidence that they do not need to succumb to Jewish boundary markers (Gal 3:2-5).13 He wants to learn only one thing from them (v. 2), whether they received the Spirit by “works of law” or by “the hearing of faith.” Since he has them on this one, he goes on to ask whether having begun by Spirit they intend now to come to comple-tion by “flesh” (= circumcision). “Have you experienced14 so much in vain?” he asks (v. 4). Finally, in v. 5 he appeals to their present experience of the Spirit: “He who supplies you with the Spirit and works miracles in your midst, does he do this by works of law or by the hearing of faith?”15 The Spirit is the absolute key to everything, and the certain evidence that justification is by faith, not by doing works of law.
Not only so, but the whole of ongoing Christian life, both individual and corporate, is to be lived out in terms of the Spirit. The primary imperative for Paul, therefore, is “walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16); God’s people are “led by the Spirit” (v. 18); their ethical life is described as bearing the fruit of the Spirit (w. 22-23); and because, following the crucifixion of the flesh, they now live by means of the Spirit, they must behave in keeping with the Spirit (v. 25); they thereby sow and reap for and by the Spirit (6:8).
This, then, is what it means to be “spiritual” from Paul’s point of view; it means to be a Spirit person, one whose whole life is full of, and lived out by, the power of the Spirit.