Notes
Chapter 1 A “Theology” of the Spirit? The Spirit in Pauline Theology
. Which is precisely what I did as an appendix in GEP. See Fee, God’s Empowering Presence (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994),904–15.
. For a helpful overview of this debate, especially in its more recent expressions, see J. Plevnik, “The Center of Pauline Theology,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61 (1989): 461–78.
. “Justification” is a term drawn from the law courts. It is a natural metaphor to use when the Jewish law is in purview; indeed, it is used almost exclusively in such settings. Elsewhere Paul uses a variety of metaphors, drawn from a variety of social settings: for example, redemption (in the context of slavery), adoption (a family metaphor; see chap. 6), propitiation (taken from the sacrificial system), washing (also from Jewish religious practices), reconciliation (in the context of enmity between persons).
. See GEP,12n13.
. At issue for many is the relationship of coherence and contingency in trying to reconstruct Pauline theology. That is, can one extrapolate a coherent theological core from Paul’s letters to serve as a kind of Pauline “systematic” theology? Or does the ad hoc nature of the letters, which means that the theology is always being expressed in the contingency of that historically specific situation, preclude finding such coherence?
. C. Pinnock, “The Concept of Spirit in the Epistles of Paul” (PhD diss., Manchester, 1963), 2; cf. S. Neill and N. T. Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861–1986 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 203: “Paul’s doctrine of the Spirit is far more central and characteristic than his doctrine of justification by faith.”
Chapter 2 God Revisits His People—The Spirit as the Renewed Presence of God
. As prophesied by Joel (Joel 2:28–30). Paul viewed this as the primary way the Spirit is present in the gathered community; see 1 Thess. 5:19–22; 1 Cor. 11:4–5; 12:1–14:40; Rom. 12:6; 1 Tim. 4:14. See also the discussion in chap. 14.
. On this matter see especially the discussion of 2 Cor. 3:4–6 and Rom. 2:29 in GEP; see also the discussion in chap. 9 (pp. ).
. On the theme of the divine presence as the key to biblical theology, see Samuel Terrien, The Elusive Presence: Toward a New Biblical Theology (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978).
. On the significance of this motif for Paul, see the discussion on pp. .
. For example, see the apocalyptic writer of 1 Enoch (“After this, the Righteous and Elect One will reveal the house of his congregation,” 53:6; “I went on seeing until the Lord of the sheep brought about a new house, greater and loftier than the first one,” 90:29).
. This is my own translation, although I have deliberately followed the language of the NIV or NRSV as much as possible. For v. 9 in particular, also following the NRSV, see GEP,713–14.
. It should be noted that in the Gospels of Matthew and John, Christ plays this role. In Matthew 1, for example, Zechariah is told that Jesus’s name will be “Immanuel,” that is, “God with us”; in chap. 12 Jesus, referring to himself, says that “something greater than the temple is here”; and the Gospel concludes with the Risen Lord telling the disciples, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” In John 1:14 the “Word” is said to “have tabernacled among us,” so that “we beheld his glory, the glory of the one and only Son of the Father,” who himself was full of the Father’s attributes of “grace and truth [faithfulness].” The trinitarian implications of both Christ and the Spirit as fulfilling the renewed presence motif will be spelled out in chap. 4.
. See the exegesis of these various passages in GEP.
. See the discussion of this passage in GEP,50–53, where the unusual Greek expression, translated “who gives his Spirit into you,” is best understood as coming from the Septuagint reading of Ezek. 36:27 and 37:14.
. For the exegesis supporting the conclusions expressed here, see GEP,112–18.
. Paul has just made the point that the Spirit whom they have received is also the one who reveals to us the wisdom in “God’s folly,” the cross (2:10; cf. 1:18–25); in 12:13 he will state that the Spirit makes the many of them, in all their diversity, one body.
. On the further theological implications of this passage, see pp. .
. For the full exegesis of the Spirit passages in this larger section, see GEP,296–321.
. For this language, see chap. 5.
Chapter 3 The Holy Who? The Spirit as Person
. Both Greek pneuma and Hebrew rûaḥ can mean either “spirit” or “wind,” depending on context (cf. the play on this usage in John 3:5).
. For a list of these passages in their various formulations, see chap. 2 in GEP.
. See GEP on 1 Thess. 4:8; cf. 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Rom. 5:5; Eph. 1:17; 2 Tim. 1:7; cf. “the supply of the Spirit” in Gal. 3:5 and Phil. 1:19.
. For “receive” see GEP on 1 Cor. 2:12; 2 Cor. 11:4; Gal. 3:2, 14; Rom. 8:15; for “have” see 1 Cor. 2:16; 7:40; Rom. 8:9.
. For this understanding of Rom. 8:28, see GEP,587–90.
. That is, Paul is reflecting his biblical heritage that everything shall be established by two or three witnesses (Deut. 19:15); cf. 2 Cor. 13:1.
. It should be noted that, unless otherwise specified, the word “God” in Paul always refers to God the Father.
. For a full exegesis of these three texts, see the appropriate places in GEP. Some also appeal to Rom. 1:3–4 and 8:9–10 (see, e.g., N. Q. Hamilton, The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in Paul, Scottish Journal of Theology Occasional Papers 6 [Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1957], 10–15); however, these texts do not suggest any identification; indeed, they demonstrate the opposite. See the discussions in GEP, chap. 7.
. See GEP,833n19.
. Cf. Arthur W. Wainwright, The Trinity in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1962), 260.
Chapter 4 God in Three Persons—The Spirit and the Trinity
. Arius was a bishop in Alexandria who at the beginning of the fourth century argued that “there was a time when Christ was not,” thus positing Christ as a divine being, to be sure, but a created one, who was not fully equal with God. It took the Jehovah’s Witnesses many decades to discover that they were Arians. Since that day they stopped “witnessing” about “kingdom” issues, as had been their wont, and instead pursued their anti-trinitarian Arianism with full and knowledgeable vigor.
. And even our term “Person” causes all kinds of difficulties, partly because it stems from a Latin word that does not carry all the baggage that our word does. For example, our word “person” implies self-consciousness, so that “three Persons” should mean three separate and distinct expressions of “self-consciousness,” but neither the Greek hypostasis nor the Latin persona carries such a nuance.
. The fifth-century ecumenical council at which was drafted the orthodox formulation of the Trinity that still stands today in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions.
. Pinnock (“Concept,” 2): “Modern Christians are largely content to be trinitarian in belief, but binitarian in practice”; he notes that much the same had been said by A. M. Hunter (Interpreting Paul’s Gospel [London: SCM, 1954], 112) and F. C. Synge (“The Holy Spirit and the Sacraments,” Scottish Journal of Theology 6, no. 1 [1953]: 65).
. On this whole question, and especially on Paul as a trinitarian, see the section entitled “What About the Trinity?” by David Ford, in Frances Young and David Ford, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 255–60.
. So also Pinnock, “Concept,” 116–18, who likewise notes that the later expression of trinitarian faith grows out of a trinitarian encounter with the one God in his saving work.
. For a thorough analysis of this text, see GEP,362–65.
. To return to an issue raised in chap. 3 above, affirmations like this also shut down all possibilities that Paul could ever identify the risen Christ with the Spirit.
. See GEP,777–84, on Titus 3:5–6. Of all my memories of the Pentecostal tradition in which I was reared (which differs in many significant respects from that of today), I suppose this particular expression of “Pentecostal spirituality” has left its most indelible imprint on my consciousness. Here were people—often poor, and sometimes suffering, people—whose experience of the Spirit in “Spirit baptism” had assured them of God’s love and of their own future glory. The gospel songs on which I was raised were the most constant reinforcement of this reality. If to the outsider we seemed to be looking for “pie in the sky” and living as escapists (cf. Robert Mapes Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited [1979; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992]), in fact we were merely expressing what we believed Paul and his churches also to have experienced—that God loves us despite outward appearances to the contrary. And it was our experience of the Holy Spirit, who poured out this love of God into our hearts, that gave us this certainty.
. For a complete list of relevant texts (all of which are analyzed in GEP), see GEP,48n39.
Chapter 5 The Beginning of the End—The Spirit as Evidence of the “Presence of the Future”
. On this question, the classic is G. Vos, The Pauline Eschatology (1930; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), esp. pp. 1–61, a book that was years ahead of its time.
. For a full discussion of this text and the eschatological framework that conditions Paul’s response, see Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 228–48.
. That Paul never lost this perspective is witnessed most vividly in 1 Cor. 15:20–28. When Christ raises the believing dead, that spells the death of death itself; thus Christ turns over all things to the Father, who is all and in all. See Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians,746–60.
. F. F. Bruce (The Epistle to the Galatians, New International Greek Testament Commentary[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982], 232) rightly calls this “the most distinctive feature in Paul’s doctrine of the Spirit.”
. See J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914–30), 79; cf. the discussion on 2 Cor. 1:21–22 in GEP, 287–96.
. So much is this so, that the NIV translates arrabōn in both 2 Corinthians passages as “a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” That is an accurate English translation of the idea (as opposed to a merely literal translation), although the phrase “guaranteeing what is to come” is only inherent in the metaphor itself—it does not occur in Paul’s own sentence as such.
. Although there is nothing inherently difficult theologically with this assertion, and indeed it may very well be so, nonetheless one cannot derive such a view from anything Paul says explicitly. For the contrary view, and the arguments against it, see GEP,553–54 and 808–10.
. See 1 Thess. 1:10; 1 Cor. 6:14; 15:15; 2 Cor. 4:14; 13:4; Gal. 1:1; Rom. 4:24; 6:4; 8:11; 10:9; Col. 2:12; Eph. 1:20; plus the texts where Christ’s resurrection is expressed in the “divine passive” (1 Thess. 4:14; 1 Cor. 15:12, 20; 2 Cor. 5:15; Rom. 4:25; 6:9; 7:4; 8:34).
. On this question see esp. GEP,543n205, and 552n231, on Rom. 8:10–11.
. For the exegetical support of what is said here, see GEP,263–71.
Chapter 6 A People for His Name—The Spirit and the People of God
. I get a lot of flack for this view, especially from some in my “revivalist” heritage, and am quoted such texts as Rom. 10:9, “That if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” This text, however, presupposes the Christian community as the place where such confession occurs, at the very least at baptism. The earliest Christians would not have understood a believer whose salvation has not been completed by baptism, which includes identification with both Christ and his people.
. This specific language does not occur in the OT as such. It is a modification of the common expression for the temple, “a dwelling for his name,” based on the recurring motif that Israel is a people identified with, or called by, the name of Yahweh their God. See, e.g., Num. 6:27; Deut. 28:10; 2 Sam. 7:23; 2 Chron. 7:14; Isa. 43:7; Jer. 14:9; Dan. 9:19.
. Cf. D. Ewert, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1983), 168, who also shows concern that by starting with the individual one may skew the data, but that if one does not take the individual into account, one will also skew Paul’s overall theology. The failure to come to grips with this is one of the weaknesses of Horton’s book, What the Bible Says about the Holy Spirit (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1976). It is typical of the pietistic tradition of all strands (that is, those movements in the history of the church that have focused strongly on individual spirituality) to read Scripture as if it were primarily written to individual believers.
. Greek laos; see 2 Cor. 6:16–18; Titus 2:14. Although not particularly popular with Greek writers, laos was the word chosen by the Septuagint (LXX) translators to render the Hebrew ʿam, the most frequently used word in the Old Testament (over two thousand times) to express the special relationship Israel had with Yahweh. Their choice of laos was probably because the more common word ethnos was used by Greek writers to refer to themselves as a people in the same way the Hebrews used ʿam. Thus for the Jews ethnos had come to mean “gentile,” and was so used by the LXX translators. This meant they needed a different word to distinguish themselves. [The LXX is the Greek translation of the Old Testament made in the third century BCE, and used by believers in Greek-speaking congregations. In fact, so much did the Septuagint become the Christians’ Bible that by the end of the first century, Jews stopped using it altogether, and at least three other Greek translations were made for Jews in the second century.]
. Greek eklektos and cognates; see 1 Thess. 1:4; 2 Thess. 2:13; Col. 3:12; Eph. 1:4, 11. As in the Old Testament the term refers not to individual election but to a people who have been chosen by God for his purposes. As one has been incorporated into, and thus belongs to, the chosen people of God, one is in that sense also elect.
. Although “children” is the more appropriate translation into modern English, I keep “sons” in quotes because the whole passage is a play on this language. Through the Son we have received adoption as “sons,” the evidence of which is our use of the Son’s own address to the Father.
. On the significance of this cry for the individual believer, see chap. 8, pp. .
. See 1 Cor. 3:16–17; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:19–22; 1 Tim. 3:15–16.
. See 1 Cor. 10:16–17; 11:29; 12:12–27; Rom. 12:4–5; Col. 1:18; 3:15; Eph. 1:23; 2:16; 4:3–16; 5:23. For the most recent discussion of the imagery in Paul, see G. L. O. R. Yorke, The Church as the Body of Christ in the Pauline Corpus: A Re-examination (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991), whose primary conclusion is undoubtedly correct: that Paul knows nothing of a “mystical body of Christ” to which believers are joined; rather, Paul’s use of the imagery is figurative in every case and has the human body as its point of reference.
Chapter 7 Conversion: Getting In (Part 1)—The Spirit and the Hearing of the Gospel
. The one word, pistis, expresses for Paul both of these ideas: trust and trusting faithfulness. Thus pistis is listed among the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22), as well as serving to denote our proper response to God’s saving grace.
. The Greek word variously translated “faith,” “belief,” or “trust” is a difficult one to render into English by a single word. Our words tend to be too limiting; “belief,” for example, puts the emphasis on what goes on in our heads. The Greek word includes that but means to put one’s trust in that which one “believes.”
. On this question, both as to its Jewish background and its Pauline usage, see especially M. Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2/36 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990). My interest at this point is in “revelation” as it refers to Paul’s—and his churches’—hearing and understanding the gospel. But in keeping with his view of salvation as all-inclusive, having to do with both getting in and staying in, revelation becomes part of Christian life, as God’s people, by the Spirit, come to discern God’s will for their ethical life. See the further discussion in chaps. 9 and 10.
Chapter 8 Conversion: Getting In (Part 2)—The Spirit at the Entry Point
. See H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament (1910; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1964), 206.
. See the discussion in GEP on 1 Cor. 12:8; 13:2; 2 Cor. 4:13; Gal. 3:1–5.
. The texts here are many and varied; see, e.g., the discussions in GEP on 1 Thess. 1:4–6; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Cor. 2:6–3:1; 6:11, 19–20; 2 Cor. 1:21–22; 3:1–18; 11:4; 13:13[14]; Gal. 3:1–5; 4:6; 5:5–6; 5:13–6:10; Rom. 5:5; 7:4–6; 8:1–30; 14:16–18; 15:13, 16; Eph. 1:3–14; 4:1–6, 30; Phil. 3:3; Titus 3:4–7.
. Most likely in terms of the believer’s appropriation. Cf. Rom. 14:17, although here the connection is only indirectly made (see GEP,620–21 and 621n449).
. See the analysis of this verse in GEP,127–32.
. See GEP,777–84.
Chapter 9 Conversion: Staying In (Part 1)—The Spirit and Pauline Ethics
. I should add, to fill out the debate at the popular level, that too much ranting against “eternal security” often led to insecurity. My way of putting it is that a lot of us used to “get saved” every Sunday night because we had sinned during the week! This equally bad theology led to more spiritual neuroses than one cares to remember.
. On the question of Paul’s ethics, see especially V. P. Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968); for the role of the Spirit in Paul’s ethics, see especially the perceptive paragraphs in E. Käsemann, Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 324–25. See also in GEP the discussion on 1 Thess. 4:8; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Cor. 6:19–20; Gal. 5:5–6, 13–15, 16–18, 19–23, 24–26; 6:1–3; Rom. 6:1–8:39; 7:5–6, 14, 18; 8:1–2, 3–4, 5–8, 12–13; 13:11–14; 14:16–18; Eph. 4:3–4, 30.
. Among scores of such texts see, e.g., the powerful appeal of Isa. 58.
. See GEP on 2 Cor. 3:1–4:6 (cf. 11:4); Gal. 3:1–4:7; 4:29; 5:1–6, 13–24; Rom. 7:4–6; 8:1–30; Phil. 3:2–3.
. For helpful introductions to the issues and the debate on Paul and the law, see esp. S. Westerholm, Israel’s Law and the Church’s Faith: Paul and His Recent Interpreters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), and F. Thielman, Paul and the Law: A Contextual Approach (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1994).
. Indeed, much of the literature on Paul and the law stems from the need to explain how a Jew like Paul could bear such un-Jewish sentiments toward Torah.
. For the exegesis that leads to these various conclusions, see GEP on 2 Cor. 3:1–18; 3:4–6, 7–11; Gal. 3:1–5, 14; 4:4–7, 29; 5:5–6, 13–15, 18, 19–23; Rom. 2:29; 7:5–6, 14, 18; 8:1–2, 3–4; 12:1–2; Phil. 3:3.
. The passages here are numerous: Gal. 5:13–14; 1 Cor. 8:2–3; 13:4–7; Rom. 13:8–10; Col. 3:14; Eph. 5:2, 25.
. See the discussion in GEP on Gal. 5:13–6:10; 2 Cor. 12:18; Col. 1:9–11; Eph. 4:1–3.
. As we will discuss in chap. 11, the whole point of the argument of Gal. 5:13–6:10 has to do with the adequacy of the Spirit for our righteousness, as we continue to live as Spirit people in a world where the perspective of the flesh is still the dominant force. The point of the command in Gal. 5:16 is promise: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the desire of the flesh.”
. As noted in the analysis of Gal. 5:16 in GEP,427–34.
. See the discussion in GEP on such diverse texts as 1 Thess. 4:8; 2 Thess. 1:11; 2:13; 1 Cor. 6:11; Rom. 15:16; Eph. 4:30.
. Except for instances where he is making a play on the new and old covenants, as in Rom. 15:16. There his point has to do with formerly unclean gentiles now sanctified by the Spirit, so that they may not be judged by Jewish Christians for their lack of ritual purity, especially their rejection of circumcision and food laws.
. Compare A. W. Wainwright, The Trinity in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1962), 22–23.
Chapter 10 Conversion: Staying In (Part 2)—The Fruit of the Spirit
. For the exegetical details in support of what is said about the following texts, see appropriate sections in GEP.
. See, e.g., 1 Thess. 3:12; 4:9–11; 1 Cor. 13:1–13; 16:14; Rom. 13:8–10; Col. 3:14; Eph. 5:2.
. See, e.g., the key texts in Deut. 7:7–8 and 10:15, a theme picked up in the prophets (Hos. 3:1; 11:1; Isa. 41:8; 43:4; 48:14; 60:10; 63:9), where the translators of the Septuagint used the Greek word agapē. As with many such words, this background in the Septuagint, not its classical or Hellenistic usage, tends to determine Pauline usage.
. Beginning with this virtue, our tendency is to read this list as though it were first of all a description of personal piety; thus we most often use it as a kind of checklist to see how we are doing. I would not hereby argue against such a reading of the text; my concern is that in context Paul probably intended all of these as virtues that should characterize the life of the Christian community, as it lives out its corporate life with one another in the world.
. One wonders whether the general lack of joy that characterizes much of contemporary North American Christianity suggests that the life of the Spirit has been generally downplayed in the interest of a more heady or performance-oriented brand of faith.
. See 1 Thess. 5:23; 2 Thess. 3:16; 1 Cor. 14:33; 2 Cor. 13:11; Rom. 15:33; 16:20; Phil. 4:9.
. The KJV translated it “longsuffering.” It is still hard to improve on the KJV in 1 Cor. 13:4—love “suffereth long, and is kind.”
. 1 Cor. 4:21; Gal. 5:23; 6:1; Col. 3:12; Eph. 4:2; 1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 2:25; Titus 3:2.
. The adjective also occurs in the list of virtues required of an overseer in Titus 1:8.
Chapter 11 The Ongoing Warfare—The Spirit against the Flesh
. N. T. Wright, Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship (London: SPCK, 1994), 72.
. These words come from Krister Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” in Paul among Jews and Gentiles: And Other Essays (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 78–96.
. See also Ps. 51, where David speaks of his “sin as ever before me” (v. 3) and of his having “done what is evil” (v. 4). But he also knows the source of such sin, the evil heart, which he refers to in vv. 5–6.
. See the discussion in GEP of Gal. 5:13–15, 16–17, 19–23, 24–26; 6:7–10; Rom. 7:4–6; 8:4, 5–8; 13:11–14; Phil. 3:3.
. For further reference to recent scholarship on this question, especially the position of J. D. G. Dunn, to which some of the following is a response, see Fee, GEP, 816–22.
. But does so inconsistently. It uses “sinful nature” when “flesh” implies a negative moral judgment (e.g., see 1 Cor. 5:5; Gal. 5:13, 16, 17 [twice], 19, 24; 6:8; Rom. 7:5–8:13; Col. 2:11, 13; Eph. 2:3), but “worldly point of view” in 2 Cor. 5:16 (cf. 1:12, 17; 10:2) and “flesh” in Phil. 3:3–4!
. This contrast does not occur nearly as often as we are sometimes led to believe, being found basically in Gal. 5:13–6:10 (cf. the analogy in 4:29); Rom. 8:3–17; and Phil. 3:3—although see also 1 Cor. 3:1.
Chapter 12 Power in Weakness—The Spirit, Present Weakness, and Prayer
. The default, it seems to me, stems from a general failure to take the Spirit seriously as God’s empowering presence.
. The chief proponent of this view is J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), 326–42, who for all his powerful moments and keen insights nonetheless makes a confusion at this point that is simply foreign to Paul.
. In this regard see D. A. Black, Paul, Apostle of Weakness: Astheneia and Its Cognates in the Pauline Literature (New York: Peter Lang, 1984).
. I say “gladly” not because Paul enjoyed suffering, but because he saw suffering distinctly in terms of discipleship. That is, he saw suffering as following in the ways of Christ, who suffered before entering into his glory, and who through that suffering redeemed the people of God. Hence Paul’s willingness not only to suffer for Christ’s, and thus the church’s, sake, but to rejoice in suffering, inasmuch as it confirmed for him the reality of his discipleship.
. On this matter see chaps. 13 and 14; cf. Dunn, Jesus,160–65.
. On this question see Gordon Fee, “Some Reflections on Pauline Spirituality,” in Alive to God: Studies in Spirituality Presented to James Houston, ed. J. I. Packer and L. Wilkinson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992), 96–107. See also K. Stendahl, “Paul at Prayer,” in Meanings: The Bible as Document and as Guide (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 151–61; and more recently, D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992).
. It has sometimes been noted, as a word either against the personality of the Spirit or against Paul’s trinitarianism, that the Spirit is never invoked in prayer, as are the Father and the Son. Precisely, but the conclusion being drawn is incorrect. The role of the Spirit in prayer is a different one; he is our divine “pray-er,” the one through whom we pray, not the one to whom prayer is directed.
. See further the exegesis of 1 Cor. 14:5 in GEP, where I argue that the interpretation of a tongue does not thereby turn it into human-directed speech but interprets the mystery spoken to God referred to in 14:2.
. This term is used here in its more technical sense of having some sort of transcendent, out-of-body experience of God.
. See the discussion of 2 Cor. 5:13 in GEP,327–30.
Chapter 13 To the Praise of His Glory—The Spirit and Worship
. I stress the factor of available evidence, because what comes to us does so for the most part in the form of correction. We simply do not know enough to make far-reaching, all-inclusive statements about the nature of worship in Paul’s churches.
. For the argumentation in favor of this structure, see GEP,648–57.
. Even though the word “hymn” itself does not occur. See especially in this regard Rev. 4:11, which is addressed to God and introduced with “saying,” and Rev. 5:9, which picks up the identical language but is introduced, “they sing a new song, saying . . .” See also 5:12, 13.
. See most recently N. T. Wright, “Poetry and Theology in Colossians 1.15–20,” New Testament Studies 36 (1990): 444–68.
. This happens throughout the Psalter. See, e.g., Ps. 30, which offers praise to God in the second person in vv. 1–3, then encourages singing on the part of the congregation in vv. 4–5, predicated on the fact that “his favor lasts a lifetime,” and returns to second person address in vv. 6–9. Cf. inter alia Pss. 32, 66, 104, 116; so also the many hymns that call on the congregation to praise God in light of his character and wondrous deeds.
Chapter 14 Those Controversial Gifts? The Spirit and the Charismata
. This word does not mean what it is most commonly translated to mean, “gifts of the Spirit.” The word has nothing to do with the Spirit on its own; it is a noun formed from the word “grace” and means literally “a concrete expression of grace.” It becomes “Spiritual gift” in Rom. 1:11 by the addition of the adjective “Spiritual.” It is the context of 1 Corinthians, plus the fact that this word is associated with the ministries of the Spirit in 1 Cor. 12:4, that has led us to call all these Spirit manifestations in 1 Cor. 12 “Spiritual gifts”—properly so in this case but improperly so in most other occurrences in the New Testament.
. For bibliography, see GEP,172n336.
. On the probability that Paul understood himself to be a prophet as well as an apostle, see GEP on 1 Cor. 14:37 and Eph. 3:5. According to 1 Cor. 5:3–4 and Col. 2:5 he also understood himself to be present by the Spirit in the gathered assembly, presumably at the reading of his letter. Therefore, he probably understood his letters to function in a prophetic way within the churches as they were being read.
. For the more detailed analysis of these texts see GEP,71–75, or the full argument in my essay “Pneuma and Eschatology in 2 Thessalonians 2.1–2: A Proposal about ‘Testing the Prophets’ and the Purpose of 2 Thessalonians,” in T. E. Schmidt and M. Silva, eds., To Tell the Mystery: Essays on New Testament Eschatology in Honor of Robert H. Gundry, Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series 100 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 196–215.
. Especially H. Gunkel, The Influence of the Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979; German orig. ed. 1888). Nor did he, as R. B. Hoyle suggests (The Holy Spirit in St. Paul [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1928], 34), “base all the religious and ethical life of Christians on the quieter, constant, inward working of the Spirit.” Paul would not recognize such false distinctions.
. The most textually perceptive of these various attempts is that by R. Gaffin, Perspectives on Pentecost (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979). This book basically raises and answers questions, using Paul in support, to which Paul does not speak at all. Compare my critique in Gospel and Spirit: Issues in New Testament Hermeneutics (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 75–77.
Appendix
. For the most substantial treatment of these two questions, covering the whole range of the New Testament, see J. D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit (London: SCM, 1970). He was responded to in detail from the charismatic side by H. V. Ervin, Conversion-Initiation and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1984); but Ervin’s exegesis is often forced, marring the overall value of the book.
. There is also considerable disagreement even on the terminology, since many, on the basis of 1 Cor. 12:13, are prone to use the term “Spirit baptism” to refer to conversion itself.
. A model, interestingly, that Pentecostals have seen as expressing Spirit baptism as subsequent to his birth by the Spirit.
. What follows is based on the analysis of these texts from GEP.
. One reads in Hoyle (Holy Spirit,32), for example, that “in the early church . . . the reception of the Spirit generally followed upon baptism, though in exceptional cases it might precede it” (emphasis mine), with the “exceptions” in Acts noted in a footnote. Since the “exceptions” are significantly more numerous than the “rule,” one might think that in this case the exception was the rule!
. For a more detailed presentation of this perspective, see GEP,82–84, or the introduction to my commentary on 1 Corinthians.
. See, e.g., Horton, What the Bible Says about the Holy Spirit,215–17; cf. 173. So also Ervin, Conversion-Initiation,86–88, 98–102, and H. Hunter, Spirit-Baptism: A Pentecostal Alternative (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983),35–36, 39–42.
. On this question, see Gordon Fee, “Baptism in the Holy Spirit: The Issue of Separability and Subsequence,” in Gospel and Spirit (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 105–19.